this year the state Haj pilgrims would take flights from three places — Lucknow, Delhi and Varanasi.

While the first flight from Delhi and Lucknow will take off on Oct 20, the flight from Varanasi will leave Nov 3,” he said.

This year the Saudi government will allow 160,000 pilgrims from India. Of these, the Haj Committee of India will send 104,000 and about 45,000 will be sent by private tour operators.

The Haj Committee of India has received 357,000 applications so far this year. Last year, 123,000 Muslims performed the pilgrimage.

Khan said this year 63,141 applications were received by the state committee and of these, 27,378 were selected through lottery system in keeping with the quota system allocated by the central committee.